Technology Indicators, an independent research company that provides ICT benchmarks to Local Government, has recently completed a study into disaster recovery (DR) trends.
In the last 12 months, about 20 per cent of the local councils that participated in the study experienced major ICT service incidents that required an invocation of the councils’ DR procedures. Power failures and hardware and software related problems were two major causes of the incidents.
The priority of DR initiatives is on the rise, and about 60 per cent of the councils that participated in the study plan to increase their DR budgets.
The spend on DR related work can vary to up to 15 per cent of the total IT budget or 0.3 per cent of a council’s revenue.
One of the major drivers of change in business continuity and DR strategies is advances in the technologies available to local councils. For example, as virtualisation technologies provided more affordable, reliable and easier to implement and manage disaster recovery solutions, local councils that use virtualisation are shifting their focus from technical issues towards the development of integrated business continuity strategies.
However, only about 25 per cent of the councils that participated in the study plan to execute a complete rehearsal test in the next 12 months.
The disruptive impact of the business continuity and DR testing on employees, and sometimes on customers and revenue, is one of the challenges – only 40 per cent of the councils that conducted technical recovery tests in the last 12 months executed them with no disruptive impact on their organisations.
While applications and databases have the highest DR adoption rates, progress is being made in other areas – about 30 per cent of the participating councils are evaluating or implementing DR solutions for email servers, and 25 per cent of the councils are working on DR for their mobile technologies.
Technology Indicators’ studies are guided by an Advisory Board which comprises representatives from local councils in Australia and New Zealand. The studies are used by councils for benchmarking, budgeting, planning, business case development and stakeholder management.
A study into e-government capabilities is currently under way, and a number of other topics (information security, Green IT) are being worked through.
If you wish to leverage comparative peer data to validate, calibrate and defend your ICT strategies, email
leila_abbasova@tech-indicators.com.au
